


final boss oikawa tooru

by iceblinks



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen, HAIKYUU 402, M/M, basically my 1.5k tribute to oikawa, he totally won gold for argentina you can't change my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25462846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceblinks/pseuds/iceblinks
Summary: Too long, didn’t read, got bored and went off to play beach volleyball with a group of strangers who can’t pronounce your name: yes, Oikawa Tooru is a pro, but it’s complicated.“I don’t get it,” Shouyou says, and Oikawa “It’s Complicated” Tooru just sighs and offers to buy him a beer. Not everyone can be a go-getter like Shouyou, or as strong as Ushijima, or as driven as Kageyama.“Some of us are just normal, Shouyou,” he says.Or: Oikawa Tooru is not a genius.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 15
Kudos: 110





	final boss oikawa tooru

Oikawa Tooru is not a genius. 

It’s one of the first things he learns—some people are simply better than him. He cannot change this. He cannot will away genetics and coordination and aptitude. Talent is something bestowed upon people, and he is not one of the chosen ones. The thought strikes him, not for the first time, when he watches the little first-year Kageyama perform toss after pinpoint toss. He cannot fight talent. Five hundred perfect sets might ensure his position as starting setter for KitaDai, but they might not, either. 

Perhaps talent is, for him, the ability to hyperfocus. He’s always gotten good grades, ranking in the top one hundred of his year. It’s wasted on him. He does not plan on pursuing an academic career; he wants to play volleyball. Even at age fourteen, watching Kageyama set a perfect, arching toss across the court, he knows this. If only he had been endowed with the abilities Kageyama had; surely, he would have been able to maximize their effectiveness. He lays awake thinking about this, eyes burning. The cracks on his ceiling get bigger and bigger each year. 

But: talent is not the key to immortality. Talent alone does not ensure success. Talent can take on the shape of a stocky, callused left hand and still come out as the loser of the battle. Oikawa Tooru cannot, _will not,_ shove his head down into the sand and cry about being only human. He imagines taking a sledgehammer to the stupid gold Karasuno medal on the train ride home from Sendai and feels a little better. 

He practices even harder after that match. Matsukawa tries to tell him it’s pointless, that he doesn’t need to stretch himself so far, that Spring Nationals qualifying matches are over, you know, we’re third years now, let’s just enjoy what time we have left. Time. What time? Where did it go?

Oikawa Tooru is still not a genius on his graduation day. He cries until his face feels bruised and puffy and holds Iwaizumi’s hand so hard the skin goes pale around his knuckles. Iwaizumi tells him to let go. Tooru grabs his other hand and sobs into his shoulder. 

There are more tears, later, and a plane ride and a transfer and another plane ride, and sand beneath his feet and his mentor thumping him on the back. He is in South America. Iwaizumi is in North America. He knows fuck-all about Ushijima Wakatoshi’s post-high school plans, and he feels the familiar sting of regret and jealousy in his stomach just thinking about him. That night, staring at the ceiling of Blanco’s spare room, he thinks of smashing Shiratorizawa’s silver qualifier medal in with a sledgehammer. Is Ushijima a genius? Even if not, he still has a massive advantage over Tooru. 

Argentina is very different from Miyagi. Oikawa learns new techniques along with new words. One day, he answers Iwaizumi’s call in Spanish. Iwaizumi responds in English. Tooru understands the words “lost,” “Ushijima,” “father,” and “Bitchkawa.”

“What’s that for?” Japanese feels almost strange in his mouth. He’s spoken minimally in his native tongue for the last few years, save for visits back to Japan. He hasn’t seen Iwaizumi in person for nearly seven months, and Makki and Mattsun in ten. 

“Thought it up the other day.” There’s a rustling sound, and then Iwaizumi’s voice goes quieter. “Ushijima’s here with me. Turns out his dad wrote the book I was telling you about. Small world, huh?”

Tooru’s blood boils at the mention of Ushijima. 

“Iwa-chan,” he says loudly, pouring boiling water from his teakettle, “remember when we used to play Yu-Gi-Oh when we were kids?”

“You’re changing the subject, Bitchkawa.”

“Hey! It’s your fault for bringing _him_ up!”

Tooru wonders if Ushijima or Kageyama ever played Yu-Gi-Oh with anyone when they were younger. It’s weird to think about them in a context besides volleyball, and he shudders, taking a sip of his tea. 

“It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

Iwaizumi Hajime is a telepathic alien sent from the outer reaches of deep space. This goes beyond talent; it’s uncanny. He should not be able to read Tooru’s thoughts from ten thousand kilometers away. “Y’know...how he’s a person, too. He’s got a personality outside of volleyball. It’s...disconcerting. We built him up to be this massive, evil opponent, but it turns out he’s a pretty normal guy.”

“Nah, he’s probably stalking you, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, singsong, and then swears colorfully as he spills hot tea over his fingers. 

Tooru feels a little more lonely after that call. He leaves Argentina for Brazil, briefly, and runs into the solar incarnate that is Hinata Shouyou. Shouyou is entirely unknown outside of his beach volleyball cult. Shouyou has been in Brazil for the last two years and speaks at least three languages, and he still calls Tooru the “Great King” and jumps around like he did in high school. No— _jump_ isn’t an accurate way to describe what he does anymore. He rockets off the ground like a spaceship headed into orbit. He doesn’t leap into jumps so much as he eases into them, taking to the air with the grace of a dancer and the speed of a race car. There is no way to describe his jumps as anything other than _beautiful._ Tooru feels the hot, piercing sting of jealousy and offers to take Shouyou out to dinner. 

Oikawa Tooru is not a genius, but his ambition precedes him. Shouyou looks up at him with stars in his eyes and asks if he still plays volleyball. It’s grossly satisfying to say he sets for a professional team back in Argentina. 

“Whoa, Oikawa-san!” Shouyou marvels. “You’re already a pro!”

‘Pro’ is a word that Tooru has mixed feelings about. He is a professional volleyball player, yes, but ‘pro’ carries different connotations. It ties in too closely to words such as ‘genius,’ ‘talent,’ ‘Yu-Gi-Oh,’ et cetera. Was he a pro for getting decent marks through high school, even with the amount of time volleyball occupied in his schedule? Neither he nor Iwaizumi had been in the top one hundred by their third year, but they hadn’t been failing. Is Tooru a pro for selling his soul to a sport he’s had to pull himself up by his fingernails for since he started playing?

Too long, didn’t read, got bored and went off to play beach volleyball with a group of strangers who can’t pronounce your name: yes, Oikawa Tooru is a pro, but it’s complicated. 

“I don’t get it,” Shouyou says, and Oikawa “It’s Complicated” Tooru just sighs and offers to buy him a beer. Not everyone can be a go-getter like Shouyou, or as strong as Ushijima, or as driven as Kageyama. 

“Some of us are just normal, Shouyou,” he says. 

Shouyou cocks his head and looks at him with wide eyes. “You really think you’re just normal, Oikawa-san?”

“I’m not Kageyama, that’s for sure.”

And he isn’t. He’s tried—hell, he’s worked his ass off to get to the level he’s at now; the residual pain in his knee from his breakdown in his second year is proof that he’d worked himself to the bone until he could go no further. Improvement is mental as much as it is physical, and it had taken several long talks with his doctor, Blanco, and Iwaizumi to realize that. 

But he can freely admit, aged twenty-two, that he and Kageyama sit at the same level. Where their specialties lie differs greatly, but within those parameters, Tooru is a mortal who has flown too close to the sun and survived. Survives, present tense. A voice in the back of his head wonders how much longer he can take it, but he shuts it down. If he truly believes that he can surpass his limits, give a hundred and twenty percent and live to tell the tale, he will gain complete control of the court. Tooru wields physical and mental fortitude like Thor’s mountain-crushing hammer. He will make himself into someone just as good as a genius.

So: he continues to play volleyball. He wins. He loses. He is scouted and he makes friends and he loses friends and he loses his dual citizenship and he visits Iwaizumi in California and Makki and Mattsun in Japan. He becomes a naturalized Argentinian citizen and moves into a larger apartment and wins and loses and wins. Life, as it always will, goes on.

A week before his twenty-seventh birthday, Tooru plays for Argentina in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The Japanese team is stacked with players from his adolescence. Kageyama meets his gaze through the wide gaps in the volleyball net and his eyes say _I’ll beat you this time._ Ushijima nods. Shouyou waves. On the sidelines, Iwaizumi shouts at him, “We’re gonna crush you, Oikawa!”

Oikawa Tooru is not a genius. He has fought tooth and nail for his place in the world, fought to stand among giants and winged stars. Now, the only mortal on a court full of monsters and half-humans and gods, he lets himself relax. This is who he is. Out of blood, bone, and sinew, has made himself into a monster. His head clears, and he steps forward to deliver the first serve of the game with the force of all his hard-earned skill. 

Oikawa Tooru has never felt a more satisfying win. 

**Author's Note:**

> haikyuu is over and i am sad. i am also massively proud of oikawa tooru for coming all this way and proving that even in spite of the overwhelming talent in this world, you can push yourself to your limits and make something out of it. legends behavior? I think yes


End file.
